I Didn’t Want to Have Kids. My Husband Did. Could Our Marriage Survive?

Modern Love

The New York Times

Love, New York Times, Nytimes, Essay, Loss, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Redemption, Nyt

4.3 • 9K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2026

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Helena de Groot thought she had decided not to become a mother. But, she found, she had to make that decision over and over again.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Love now and...
0:03.5	Love was stronger than anything.
0:07.0	And I love you more than anything.
0:10.7	What is love?
0:11.1	Love.
0:11.6	There's to love.
0:14.8	From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin.
0:17.0	This is Modern Love.
0:18.1	And today I'm talking to Helena de Groot.
0:23.3	For a long time, Helena's been asking herself some version of the same question, should I have a kid? For some people, the answer to that
0:29.0	question is really clear. But for Helena, it was really complicated. Most of the time, she thought,
0:35.5	no, motherhood is not for me.
0:38.1	But over and over, a little bit of doubt would creep in.
0:40.9	And she'd wonder if she was making the right choice.
0:44.0	She talks about all of this in her new podcast called Creation Myth.
0:48.0	And I wanted to have Helena on today to understand how this question,
0:51.7	should I have a kid, ended up consuming not only her life,
0:55.4	but affecting the people she loved, testing her marriage, and changing the future she imagined
1:00.2	for herself.
1:03.5	Helena de Groot, welcome to Modern Love.
1:06.5	Thank you, Anna.
1:07.8	Helena, you've just released a very personal podcast series.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New York Times, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The New York Times and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.